This post is a guest post from my friend, Melissa. I've known Melissa for a long time and I'm so excited for her to become a mommy. She writes here about some thoughts on parenthood and her experience finding out the sex of her baby. I similarly "freaked out" like she did when I actually found out the sex of the baby I was having - suddenly I could connect to the baby in a whole new way and it all felt so much more real. Thanks again for sharing this post with me, Melissa. I can't wait to see you and your beautiful belly soon!

This is a letter I wrote to my still-forming precious little baby before I knew what gender “it” was.

Right now you are still an “it”. I don’t know if you are a boy or a girl. I will probably find out tomorrow. Everyone is so anxious to know what you! Everyone keeps asking, “Is it a boy or girl?” “Do you know what it is yet?” But I don’t mind putting it off for some reason. I’m not as anxious to find out what you are as other people. I actually kind of like that right now you are unknown and all the possibilities for you lay ahead.

I feel like once people know the sex, you’ll start getting pigeonholed and I think I might do that to you too. If you’re a girl I start seeing softball and baton twirling or dancing and things that I did when I was a little girl. If you’re a boy I start thinking blue and baseball and business savvy.

I just don’t ever what you to be limited by anybody’s expectations… including my own. I want you to be free to pursue whatever desires God places in your soul. To be able to proudly indulge and excel at whatever gifts God chooses to bless you with… even if those things aren’t sports or school or whatever it is that I might see in mind tomorrow when I find out what sex you are.

Girl or boy, I will love you either way and will try to remember to help you get to your success and the fullest potential of your gifts… not my preconceived notions of what those things might be. I want you to be free to be you… whoever that is… 

We had the ultrasound soon after I wrote this letter and had the ultrasound tech write down if it was a boy or a girl and put it in a small envelope. I opened the envelope on Mother’s day and was pleasantly surprised to find out we would be having a girl.

Opening it on Mother’s day was a nice surprise but made me experience Mother’s day in a whole new light. Mother’s day was usually a day of appreciation and thanks for my mother and it still was. But this mother’s day was different, it felt heavy. Finding out this little being inside of me was a girl somehow made the situation all of the sudden so REAL. It was no longer this light fanciful little thing that I would be a mom soon… it was so real! There is a child inside of me… a girl. A girl that would soon need a girl name and girl room and would soon be out in the world developing her own little girl personality and would need a mom. Ack! It’s Mother’s Day… I am going to be a mom! That is SO MUCH responsibility! ! ! Can I handle that? I appreciated my mom in a whole new way that mother’s day. She did so much for me, and sacrificed so much for me, and loved me so well. I could only hope that I would be as good a mother as my mom was to me.

I still freak out about being a mom but with a little less intensity than that day. I’m not quite sure how to explain it or what a good analogy would be. Maybe like a road. Before I knew what “It” was, it was like a road that was going to be built in the future. “Oh a road! That’s nice! I’m glad one will be put in. That will really make travel easier and nicer. I could really use that”. Then, the day I found out she was girl it was like I was standing looking out at a straight 10 miles stretch of uncared for land with weeds and big rocks and all of the sudden I was told it was MY responsibility to build this whole long stretch of road. Freak out! Now I feel more like I know this is going to be a long road raising this child, but it isn’t going to be built in a day. It will take a few bricks or pavers every day and I will have the hands of friends of family to call on for help if I need it.

Thoughts on parenting from the Bible

• Proverbs 29:15 “Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.”

• Hebrews 12:11 “No disciple seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it”

• Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (The Message Version)

• Proverbs 3:11 -12 “ Do not despise the Lord’s disciple and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves.”

Other parenting thoughts

• The main goal of parenting should be to develop GODLY CHARACTER (not good grades, having your child be the top athlete, or having your child achieve worldly success).

• Prepare your child for the path, not the path for your child.

• Discipline with consequences rather than outbursts. Instead of raising your voice, raise your standards.

• According to some research, a child’s moral foundation is in place by age 9 and there spiritual foundation by age 13.

• Values are caught by children not taught to children. Am I walking what I’m talking about?